The things I dare not speak - Maxim de Winter's uncensored confession
by Benoit Levacher-Dubreuil
Summary: This is based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier. I thought it could be interesting to re-invent Maxim's revelations, only filling in the blanks this time. Reviews are most welcome. Characters and main plot belong to Daphne du Maurier
1. Monte-Carlo

There are certain things my wife does not know. Thank God for that. When I finally got her in my secret - that Rebecca had not been drowned but died from my very hand instead, those were things I could keep from her without the threat of her suspecting me to have delivered a mere travesty of a confession. I guess her Manichean vision of the world counts for much. To her I was Rebecca's victim, not her tormentor. Why should it be otherwise? She envisions being a wife as a source of duties - not privilege.

Never would she have understood Rebecca's views - nor would have she been able to create them for herself. She is not quite the sort of argumentative young woman and would not question one word of what is said to her - which she anyhow regards as gospel truth. Never, even over the scenes we've had since we were married, has she stood for herself and fought me back. She's taken absolutely everything. She's simply devoted to me. She's in complete denial of my dark side. I sometimes wonder if I even look half like the man she's married. Is it me she loves or the quixotic vision she has of me?

At least, that's what I inspire to her. Love. And I do love her. She makes the world look so simple. And so I told her I hated Rebecca. It looked so simple. So easy. Why can things not be easy? Ease I've been craving ever since I was a child and my late first wife was never able to give it to me.

For things were far more complex.

I had not always hated Rebecca and I could not say if she ever truly hated me. I guess one could even say we loved each other at first. Or thought we did. I would never have thought of any reason to hate her then - but for that blasted afternoon on the heights of Monte Carlo. I will always remember it. Vividly. When they lay my body in cold earth, that memory shall still be living inside of my corpse.

I said to my second wife that Rebecca told me things I shall never repeat to a living soul.

What I did not say was that her confessions came as an answer to something I said. Something that sounds rather silly indeed now that I look back. Over half of my life is gone now, but back then I was a thirty-year-old chap, an aristocrat into the bargain. Proud, arrogant, full of ready-made thoughts. And full of contempt for one who would not fit in that tidy little world of mine. And so I never realised how despicable it might have sounded to her when I said:

'No man on the Earth could possibly be happier, luckier than I am. They will all envy me now for having married the most beautiful woman in creation. But that's precisely why I need you to swear again that you're only mine till death do us part.'

I was looking at the road, and so I could not see her. She remained quiet for a while. Then, I heard her saying: 'Is it me or yourself you put in doubt?'

And then she said no more. I remember her silence made me feel anxious. I realised the road ahead of us came to an end and so I pulled up by the edge of a 500 feet deep precipice. We were on the highest cliff overlooking the French Riviera landscape, that damn cliff I should always remember from that day on.

We got out of the car and walked to the edge of the precipice. I was stunned by the view and so was probably she for she had still not spoken. I looked at her. She was looking the opposite way so I could not see her face. Her long dark hair and her silk dress were blowing. She was a real vision. But her silence made me feel increasingly uncomfortable. I was not used to it. She would always have something to say, especially when it came to landscapes.

'Is anything the matter, my love? Why are you not saying anything?', I finally asked.

She turned to me and I did not know what to think. Her usually china-like complexion had turned a slight pink and her lips were slightly parted in an awkward smile.

'What is it?' I said.

'Nothing', she answered, but her voice gave her away. I felt my jaws tighten. There were things she was not willing to say. Things that she was trying to conceal. It was that the undertones of her voice in that moment that started our misery. Had it not been for them, I might have never learned about the very things I was better off not knowing. Had it not been for these undertones, we might have lived as husband and wife. We might even have been happy together.

'What is it?' I asked again, angrily this time.

'Good Lord, Max! How funny you can be sometimes…' she murmured. 'I wish you had not put me ill at ease, that's all' she went on.

'What the hell did I say?'

'That thing in the car, about me being only yours…' She sounded genuinely sad, which I then thoroughly chose to ignore.

'There is nothing much to be ill at ease about, then. Is it not the sort of thing men ask from their wives?'

Something about her face changed that instant. Her expression went darker, and there was a mixture of despair and loathing reflected in her eyes. For the first time I chose not speak a word. She looked at me in utter distress.

'Dear Max, those things I said in the church… they're nothing but the conventional sort of things a priest expects a bride to say… I never thought they could fool anyone.'

'What?'I barked, and my yell echoed in the cove below.

'Do you expect me to be the treasure he jealously keeps from the world? Max, I shall never be your possession. I thought you knew that. I thought the idea of freedom between us was as obvious for you as it is for me.'

'How perfectly silly', I said abruptly between my teeth. 'If you wanted freedom, then why did you marry me?'

'I married you because I wanted you to be my husband. Not my jailer. Why do you have to ask me for something that I cannot give you?'

A tremendous wrath suddenly got hold of me as I realised the sheets were still immaculate the morning after our wedding night, something I somehow took no notice of at the time. Presently I understood.

'Have been having lovers?' I was looking down at the precipice.

'What a silly question to ask, Max!' she said, her voice filled with exasperation. She paused for one second. 'How can you expect me not to have? '

'You're a disgrace! You're nothing but a filthy little cheat!'

How dare she treat the de Winter's name with such disrespect, I thought.

'And what are you, uh?' she bursted out, 'Were you expecting to be your own perfect undefiled bride? I should have put a chastity belt on and thrown the key way, shouldn't I, while as a bachelor you would go wenching as free as you please!

'Men have been seeking my favours ever since I turned sixteen. They turned at me when I was just twelve years old. And I should just have rejected them, do you say? Just like I should have rejected you, then?

'A cheat am I, uh? Me thinks that you just lack any sense of integrity!'

She was right. Of course she was. But I simply could not stand it. To this very day I've never been able to regard women as men's equals. Not that I consider them being physically or mentally inferior. I just can't think of them having equal rights with comfort. It was right for me to do certain things and expect them to be forbidden to women. And this was precisely what she was being rebellious to.

I kept looking down to the precipice, and vertigo got hold of me. The discovery I had made was pure agony and my head felt dizzy. The silver surface on the sea looked closer and closer… Much closer than it indeed was. The woman I had married was to be a source of torment… Despair and wrath were my masters in that moment.

She must have guessed what my feelings were and she told me that the men she had belonged to the past. 'There is no reason why I should let other men touch me if you can make me happy. And this is strictly up to you. That's why I can't swear I'll be eternally yours.'

She was challenging me. I didn't know how I felt about it. I was offended of course. But my feelings weren't plain at this point. There were other things. And then I realised I was still wanting her and that I did not hate her. And I started to laugh uncontrollably. She looked at me curiously. And she started laughing with me.

'All right, Max, I'll be the perfect wife...'


	2. Manderley

We had come back to Manderley, shortly after the episode in Monte Carlo, a young happy couple full of expectations.

She had promised me to make our marriage a tremendous success, to make it talked about as the greatest success of the age. As for what we had been arguing about, nobody needed to know. I had decided that she was right after all. Why should she be blamed for what she had done in the past when I would never have to face questions as to how many women I had known before her?

And she at least kept her promise in the beginning. Manderley was a tomb of a mansion hidden amidst the wilderness of its surrounding woods. Within a couple of months she had it turned to an exquisite place of beauty, brought colours and warmth where they had never been, dug out treasures that had been kept locked in dark, unused rooms. Portraits found their place in the minstrels gallery, Raeburn's paint of Caroline de Winter being the central piece of the collection. Every corner of the estate was landscaped with impeccable state, flowers in full bloom nearly the whole year round: those massive rhododendrons by the end of the drive, roses of all sorts by the East wing, azaleas in the Happy Valley, the scent of which was enough to intoxicate the mind.

And the rooms of the West wing who looked upon the sea. Those abandoned rooms, the walls of which were bare stone when she first saw them. She fell in love with them at once. She had them decorated in that same blasted faultless taste of hers.

And I must admit that I was tremendously happy. She made me happy. There was not one day that she did not make magical, not one night when we would not make love.

In September that year we had our first reception. She had sent out dozens of invitations. All of them received an RSVP yes. All the little world from this remote corner of England was to attend. And that's when I started feeling nervous about it. I could not think of these people as living according to those standards of freedom Rebecca had talked about on that cliff.

The day finally came. All our guests immediately worshiped her. She knew exactly how to present herself in front of them, and it striked me how deceiving the image she gave of her to them was. I could not help wondering what these people would have thought, had they known what our relationship was truly like, what our agreement really was. And I felt ashamed because I was tolerating a compromission other husbands at this party had certainly never faced. I felt inferior to them because unlike them my wife did not belong to me. I was still, I would always be on trial with her. And I was sure other men would not compose with that. That was wrong.

When we went to bed that night, I did not touch her. I could not. Neither could I the following night. Nor the night after that.

At first she did not seem to mind that, but when this abstinence had lasted for one week, she started noticing it. When she asked what was wrong, I tried to elude the subject. I thought my doubts would go as they had come. But she was not the type to be contented with evasive answers. When she found out I felt ashamed, she just smiled sadly. She said nothing.

A fortnight after this reception, we were back to spending our nights together as we had done in the past, but my doubts would never leave me completely. In fact they had got firmly rooted inside of me, and I knew she knew.

She had her boat brought from Brittany and got the old boathouse that we had in the bay turned into a cottage. One night she came to me, grabbed my hand and took me down there. She had had everything arranged for us to spend a romantic night together. But it did not work. It was too late. Shame was rooted too deeply. Whenever I would close the eyes, I got racked by doubt. There was nothing I could do. I broke down and said to her I did not think our marriage to be a normal one. When she asked how I thought a normal marriage should be defined, I was incapable of answering.

That was the night I think she gave up on me.

The next morning she behaved unusually coldly to me. I felt hurt. That same day in the evening, when I wanted to join her, she simply rejected me. Each one's turn, her gaze meant. We did not sleep together that night. I thought she would leave yearning for a couple of days so that I would learn my lesson. But this lasted seven, then ten, soon it had been lasting for over twenty days. And I knew then what a fool I had been to let myself overwhelm with doubt for something had broken because of it.

One night I heard her leaving her bedroom. It must have been eleven. When she reached the door leading to the staircase leading down the hall, I risked an eye through my open door and saw that she was wearing her sailing kit. She was off to her cottage. I wondered hat would she be doing there with a feel of anguish clunching my stomach. She spent the night there. I could not set an eye for the whole night.

At about three o'clock that night I went down to the library and helped me with whisky and soda. As I came back upstairs I came face to face with one of our youngest scullery maids. Whisky and frustration operated their master power upon me. I boldy grabbed her by the hand and took her to my room where I spent the night with her.

When I came downstairs for breakfast in the morning, Rebecca was sitting in her usual place. She fixed me for one instant and ordered the servants out. She then said calmly that her personal maid, Mrs Danvers - Danny, as she called her, had seen me last night. I had reset the game, she said, rules were altered. She had done everything in her power to make our marriage work but I persisted in making it fail miserably because of my rigid morals. I was jealous through and through to the extent that I had not stood the idea of her away from her bedroom for a lmere peaceful night at the cottage - her favourite place on the that day on, I would have to tolerate her doing what she pleased as she pleased. I said Manderley was my home. Why, she replied, wasn't it as hers as it was mine? She had made Manderley what it was now, hadn't she?

She took a flat in London and grew more and more independant. She did no longer care what my feelings would be about what she did. I knew she started having lovers again - and that ended driving us from each other.

And on this went for years.

I spent most of my days with Frank, my manager estate. Only could help me forget my misery because he did not know anything of my situation and I was away from Rebecca when I was with him. We grew closer and closer - as close as friends can be. And then one day, he said he wanted to leave. We argued for two hours and he finally told me that Rebecca was constantly trying to seduce him. I immediately went to Rebecca. She roared with laughter before denying the whole of Frank's story. I was a moronic puffed up bastard, always ready to believe any one who would suck up to him. In any case, she said, hadn't she a god-damn right to entertain herself? I had no one but myself to blame for this situation, hadn't I?

She went off to London straight after that scene, only to come back to Manderley about one month afterwards.

When she came back she started inviting her friends. I did not quite mind until I bumped into her favourite cousin. Jack Favell. Not only was his record filthy. She probably cared more for him than she did for me by then. That thought sickened me. How could we ever ended there? I told her Favell was not to set a foot on the estate again.

She soon avenged herself. In her view, I had attacked her family and it backfired when she took my sister Beatrice's husband, Giles, on her boat where she most obviously started on him as she had done with Frank. It was also a lesson she taught Beatrice for never having approved of her.

And then it came. That fateful night, when I found her waiting for Favell in the cottage.

When I announced to her I intended to make a divorce case against her, she simply laughed at me. There was no way she would let me do that. And she wouldn't need fight hard. The whole of the county adored her and would side her, even if I was a de Winter. And there was more

She was expecting her first child. Only it was not, it could not be from me. That was the conclusion brought to years of marriage. A supreme betrayal. We had both had it coming.


	3. Je reviens

There was no turning back from there. She had to die. I would shoot her to death and bury her in the cove.

I held the gun firmly, ready to fire. Then I feared the noise of the detonation would give me away. And I feared that her body would be recovered when some dog from the neighborhoods would come and dig where its nose told it something, someone was buried. And then the hole done by the bullet would steal be visible. They would know she had been killed, and I would be the easiest person to suspect for her murder. It was far too risky.

There would always be a risk that her body would be recovered. Any injure caused to her by a human hand could be identified. Soils were soaked in sea water and the only alternative to hide her was the sea itself. A human body, when kept still in a cold and wet environment, does not fully rot, it will always keep enouh evidence to tell the world its own story. Mortuary wax, they call it.

Her death had to be an accident. Or at least needed to look like it.

With the butt of my gun I knocked her on the head. Hard. She did not move for a second, that smile of hers still on her face. then she collapsed. Her eyes turned glassy, yet she was smiling still. For one second I thought she was dead, but the illusion was broken by the imperceptible motion of her chest. She merely had lost consciousness. Just as I had wanted her to.

I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to act fast. I carried her to the boat and laid her on the cabin floor. I did not turn the light on in the cabin.

I took her yacht to the sea, with the plan to sink her in deep water where it would be impossible to find her. But the elements were against me, the fierce wind blowing from the west, making the frail yacht drift to the left side of the cove where it would go crashing against the rocks within minutes.

I went to the cabin and opened the sea cocks. There was a spike leaning on the one of the walls. I took it and went out of the cabin. I locked the door from the outside. The portholes in the cabin were too narrow to provide an escape.

I was about to leave on the dinghy when my blood curdled. She had banged on the cabin door. She was conscious again and was banging repeatedly against the door. I hastily jumped into the dinghy, started rowing backwards and watched her sink.

Then they began. Her screams. I knew then that water must have started flooding the cabin heavily.

She would be drowned. She would because I had locked her in a coffin of a boat that was taking on water with no way to escape. I pictured her alone and helpless in the pitch black night of the cabin, with oxygen getting fewer and fewer, water reaching her knees, and then her waist, and breasts… She would desperately try to keep herself at the surface, knowing there was nothing she could do, that the end was ineluctable. Soon it would be her neck, and then her chin, her lips. Her nostrils. Her eyes, wide open in their eye-sockets.

The cabin sank underwater and took her screams with it, silencing them forever. Only the bow was emerging still. Moon appeared from amongst the clouds and casted an opal light on those two words painted in green on the bow : Je reviens. And I knew then she would come back, no matter how I tried to escape her, she would come back. As a ghost, perhaps. Or maybe as evidence against me in a court of law where an inquest over her murder case would take place. Or simply as guilt.

I killed Rebecca. I killed her spirit and I destroyed everything of her, to her very wish for a painless death. I am a murderer and a tormentor. That's what my second wife is so wrong about.

And when I join the dead, everlasting images of Monte Carlo's cliffs together with my guilt is what they bury me with.


End file.
